


undeniable you

by absopositivelutely



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Love Languages, Post-Canon, i have a lot of feelings about sokka, it's a crime that these two don't get more attention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:26:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24423484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/absopositivelutely/pseuds/absopositivelutely
Summary: He remembers, then: Suki on the airship, bright grin and the certainty of always coming back, and thinks that maybe he doesn’t have to be the only person doing the saving.(or; sokka, and learning to let himself be loved.)
Relationships: Sokka/Suki (Avatar)
Comments: 36
Kudos: 154





	undeniable you

**Author's Note:**

> hello! i, like everyone else on the planet, rewatched avatar over quarantine (twice) and, just like younger me, i am having Feelings about sokka. as a kid it never really hit me that he was 15 and just doing his best to keep his sister and two 12 year olds alive and he is just So Brave and So Good and him and suki deserve the world. thanks for coming to my ted talk.
> 
> title is from _undeniable you_ by jukebox the ghost. i think it's a very sokka and suki song.
> 
> hope you enjoy! <3

**i.**

“Some party, huh?” 

Sokka doesn’t turn around but he smiles to himself. He knows that voice, would know it anywhere. The door slides shut and there are soft footsteps before Suki presses her forehead against his back, at the point where his shoulder blades meet. He thinks Ty Lee might have taught them about some chi reserve there. He wonders if it connects to the heart. 

“Hey,” he says quietly. Suki wraps her arms around his waist and he puts his hands over hers. “You didn’t have to come out here, you know.”

“I know,” she says, easily. “I wanted to.”

Her breath is warm against him, through the thin cloth of his Fire Nation robes; he shifts so she is standing next to him, fingertips grazing over the exposed stretch of her stomach. Suki leans against his shoulder, head tucked under his chin, and he presses a kiss to her hair. “You don’t think they’ll want stories from the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors herself?”

“I think Fire Lord Zuko’s got it covered,” she laughs. “Actually, no. It’s mostly Toph.”

“I figured,” Sokka says. He knows his smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. It’s easier with the others but around Suki it doesn’t feel quite right to pretend. 

There is a silence before Suki speaks up again. “Full moon tonight,” she murmurs. He glances down at her hesitantly but there is nothing but open concern in her eyes, no shadow of jealousy in her expression.

“We _won_ ,” Sokka says. “That’s why we’re celebrating.” Even to him it sounds like he is trying to convince himself. “I thought it would…I don’t know. Help me forget all the other times we lost.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Suki says gently. She reaches up with one hand, running her fingers through his hair. He’s suddenly very glad she convinced him to let it out of the ponytail before they’d gone to Zuko’s party. “It stopped us from losing more.”

Sokka nods; inhales, exhales. Suki curls one hand in his hair, the other in the fabric of his robes, and tugs him down so she can rest her forehead against his. “Hey,” she murmurs. She doesn’t say anything but he thinks he knows what she wants to say; a brush of her fingertips against the hard line of his jaw somehow communicates more than words ever could. He smiles, a real, genuine smile, and Suki leans up on her tiptoes so she can kiss him.

The full moon is shining down on them and Sokka swears he will never fail another person like that. He remembers, then: Suki on the airship, bright grin and the certainty of always coming back, and thinks that maybe he doesn’t have to be the only person doing the saving.

Suki’s lips are a sharp curve pressed against his own, and her fingers wind through his hair again. He rests his hand flat against her side, her skin cool under his palm, and he wonders how long they can stay out here before someone discovers them on Zuko’s balcony.

He’ll take the risk. He just hopes Toph isn’t paying too much attention.

**ii.**

Fire Nation sunsets are nothing like South Pole sunsets, Sokka has noticed. As the nights get longer in the South Pole, the sunset softens, pink and purple smeared across the horizon, golden light lending a gentle glow to the outstretch of snow. Here, the sun goes down in a blaze, flaring up before burning into embers at the edge of the night sky. 

Suki is sitting on a stack of crates in the market, methodically peeling open a mango in the way Zuko had taught them back at Ember Island; fiery sunlight catches on the rounded planes of her cheekbones, the edges of her hair. Sokka has never been good at art but he wants this in a painting, Suki all graceful curved lines sprawled out and smiling; he understands now what Zuko and Aang had said, about fire being life. 

“I don’t want to say goodbye,” Sokka says, disregarding all instincts warning him not to ruin the moment. He wants to live in this moment forever, he thinks, wants to not have to walk her to the docks in a few moments and watch her ship disappear on the horizon. “I don’t want this to be—you know. Over.” 

“Sokka,” she says softly, reaching out for his hand and pulling him closer; he holds onto it like a lifeline, which he thinks isn’t too far from the truth. “It won’t be.”

“But you’re leaving,” he says, sounding small in a way that he hasn’t let himself sound in a long time, not since he left his home with his little sister and a boy who lost everything, “and you have the Kyoshi Warriors to lead, and I have to go back home and help the tribe recover, and I don’t know when we’ll see each other again, and it’s not fair to you—”

“It _is_ fair,” Suki says gently, “because I want this, too. You know I love you, Sokka.”

He blinks at her. Suki is steadily peeling the mango, like she’s just told him what the weather was like, not like she’s just delivered life-changing news. Then he thinks about it again, and wonders if maybe it is that simple, in the end. He tries it out in his head. The Fire Nation is hot, the sun is setting, and Suki is in love with him.

“I love you too,” he says, easy as breathing; he’s known this since seeing her fight in the prison, sharp muscles and rough edges and a wave cresting somewhere in his chest when she turns to smile at him; he’s known this since Ember Island, whispering into the darkness of the room they shared and across the space that stretched out between them, Suki promising no matter what happens when the comet comes, she’ll protect him and everyone he loves. He doesn’t know why he thought it would be any different.

“I know,” Suki grins, and passes him the mango. “Now eat. I didn’t spend all my Fire Nation coppers for nothing.”

**iii.**

Home is made up of the ones you love and Sokka knows that, but he doesn’t know what to do when he loves his people and his family. There is the Southern Water Tribe and there is the group of his best friends that he’d traveled the world with, who are all scattered across the world once more. He’s home at the South Pole but it doesn’t quite feel like it. 

Hawky returns with an assortment of scrolls, rolled and bound; a piece of what was missing from his home in his hands. 

Katara’s message is first, rolled together with a letter from Zuko and a letter from Toph in his sister’s handwriting. Katara and Toph are in the Fire Nation for ambassador duties; it’s not something he has the time for right now but sometimes he envies them for getting to be around each other. Aang, he knows, has been moving between the Air Temples; he’s been quiet lately but he’s sent Sokka a drawing of Appa, which Sokka thinks he might hang on the walls of his tent, though he would never tell Aang that. 

Last in his pile is a small package from Suki that he hadn’t noticed earlier, wrapped in the dark greens of the Earth Kingdom. He opens the flat box and finds a letter from Suki on top, which he puts to the side to read later. Under it is the gleam of metal in a familiar shape. 

When he goes to visit Kyoshi Island a month later, he greets Suki with a fierce hug that sends her stumbling back a step. “You made me a boomerang?!”

Suki laughs but there is a sincerity in her eyes when she looks up at him. “I know it’s not the same as the one your father gave you, but Toph wrote—well, Katara wrote, obviously—but Toph said that she checked the forest for your boomerang, and she couldn’t find it, and we make our own fans so I know how to work metal, and I asked your father for a drawing of what Southern Water Tribe boomerangs normally look like, and I thought it would be nice if—“

“You talk too much,” Sokka says, smiling so widely his cheeks hurt. “I love the boomerang. And you.”

When he goes back home to the South Pole it is a little easier; it can never be quite the same but at least, he thinks, the weight of his boomerang a familiar presence on his belt, he will have a part of her at his side. 

**iv.**

Hakoda tells him that he’s excused from today’s council meeting, and Sokka spends the next two hours panicking in his tent, trying to figure out where he went wrong. He doesn’t look up when the flaps to his tent shift and someone clears their throat lightly.

“What,” he says, miserably.

“That’s a little rude,” a familiar voice says, and Sokka turns so rapidly he thinks he might have pulled a muscle. He knows that voice, would know it anywhere. Despite the fact that he’s in his tent, the same tent he’d lived in his whole life, it sounds like coming home. 

“Suki,” he says, and he thinks he is breathing a little easier. “What are you doing here?”

“You really need to work on your delivery,” she says, stepping inside and crossing the short distance between them to rest a hand on his cheek. Sokka leans into her touch, impulsively pressing a kiss to the inside of her wrist. “Someone less understanding might think you didn’t want me here.”

“What if I said they were right?” Sokka says, grinning sideways. He can’t quite resist the opportunity. He misses this, the easy familiarity they have with each other, an understanding that comes from fighting at each other’s side. Suki swats him on the shoulder and he wraps his arms around her waist, pulling her down to sit next to him. “Seriously though, don’t you have some Kyoshi warriors to lead?”

“They yelled at me to take a break,” she shrugs, curling into his side. “So officially I’m here to improve relations between the Southern Water Tribe and Kyoshi Island.”

“That doesn’t sound like much of a break,” Sokka says, and Suki rolls her eyes before she looks up at him. 

“Relations are good right now. I’m really just here for you, stupid,” she tells him, smiling despite herself. “We have a month.”

“You came here for me?” Sokka says a little breathlessly; if Suki asked he’d blame it on the way the cold seems to pull the air from your lungs but he knows they both know better than that. She doesn’t ask, and leans her head on his shoulder to drop a kiss on his collarbone. 

“Of course I did,” she says easily. 

“You’re the reason I’m excused from the council meeting,” Sokka realizes suddenly, and Suki’s laugh makes him think maybe he understands Aang a little, when he describes what it’s like to fly. 

**v.**

“No!”

Suki is falling, Toph is falling, Sokka is falling. In the distance there is lightning, and he thinks of Aang’s body trying to contain that much energy; he’s seen Aang do it before in the Avatar state but the boy is only _twelve,_ in the end. Then he thinks of lightning arcing from Azula’s palms, of Zuko facing off against his sister, of Sokka’s own sister at Zuko’s side. Katara, his baby sister, who he was supposed to protect but who’s done more of that for him. And he is still falling, Toph out of sight, Suki out of reach, and he thinks of the way the light left Yue’s eyes, and he is screaming. 

“Sokka,” Suki’s familiar voice, low and lilting, murmurs softly. “Sokka, wake up.”

He is still screaming when he blinks his eyes open. 

“Suki,” he chokes out. There are tears running hot on his face and he thinks briefly of a time he would have been ashamed of them, would have taken them as a sign of weakness. Now, he just looks up at Suki, eyes wide and body trembling, and lets her hold him. 

“Do you want to talk?” she asks softly, one hand in his hair, the other cupping his face. He breathes in time with her thumb skimming across the hard edge of his cheekbone, back and forth, breathing in and out. 

“The war,” he rasps out, simply, and they both know that’s enough of an explanation. Suki nods once, sharply; her eyes search his own and he wonders what she sees, if they are haunted or hollow. 

“Walk with me?” Suki murmurs, and the room seems suddenly too warm, too small, walls closing in the way an airship crumples around you, the heat of the comet rolling across the air you breathe. It is an easy choice. Sokka nods and gets to his feet, following her silently, unquestioningly, through their house. The light of the moon is all that guides them and he likes to think it’s Yue’s way of looking out for him, too. 

When they get to the kitchen, Suki grabs his hands and leads him to the side, patting his shoulder in a clear gesture to stay put. Sokka hops up onto the counter, feet swinging lightly, and watches her move around the kitchen with an easy familiarity that makes his heart ache, a future painted so clearly in shades of green, white, and red. The breeze blows in through the windows cracked open, carrying the familiar salty edge he’s learned is a part of Kyoshi Island. 

“Iroh gave me some tea last time I was in the Fire Nation,” Suki says by way of explaining, bringing water to a boil while preparing tea leaves. “I thought this might help.”

He pulls her to his chest and holds her tightly until the water is boiling and they are both laughing as Suki wrestles her way out of his grip. They both know that Suki could have him pinned to the ground in a second if she wanted to. It’s one of Sokka’s favorite things about who she is. The tea is a pleasant low warmth that settles somewhere in his chest; for a second, he’s fifteen again, sitting around a bonfire at Ember Island. He remembers the way it felt, like standing on the edge of a precipice, caught between the war and his friends. 

“Hey, Suki,” he says. She looks up from her own cup of tea, eyes the same dark blue-green he’s known for years and will never get tired of. Sometimes he wishes they never had to fight in the war but he thinks he would do it all over again if this quiet certainty is his reward. “Thanks,” he says, motioning at the tea, and somehow encompassing everything they have in the vague gesture he makes with his free hand. Suki smiles, gently, and he knows she understands.

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact: each section is centered around one of the five love languages! although i think some of them unintentionally convey.. multiple. oops. here's what i was going for:  
> i. physical touch  
> ii. words of affirmation  
> iii. receiving gifts  
> iv. quality time  
> v. acts of service
> 
> kudos and comments always appreciated :) 
> 
> find me on [tumblr](https://m-9studios.tumblr.com/)!


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